1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer-based methods for testing scenarios and in particular to handling a plurality of alternative test configurations for a computer readable document like a text document, a spreadsheet document or the like.
2. Description of Related Art
Many computer programs allow the creation of documents containing a plurality of depending numbers for different, related configurations of the document. Examples of such programs are tax calculation programs with a fixed set of input and output options or spreadsheet programs, which form the basis for implementation of any kind of calculation application.
FIG. 1 schematically illustrates as an example of a computer-based spreadsheet document 100 having a plurality of parameters including rows 1, 2, 3, . . . and columns A, B, C etc. In the example shown in FIG. 1, cells A1 and B1 are assigned parameter values 6 and 10, respectively. The contents of the cells C1, D1 and E1 are calculated based on the parameter values entered in cells A1 and B1. In the present example cell C1 has the value 3, cell D1 a value of 30, and cell E1 a value of 33.
If the user wishes to know the end result in cell E1 based on a different set of parameters values A, B, the user may, for example replace the value in cell A1 with 6, and replace the value in value in cell B1 with 7. If the user then wants to see the result for the combination of parameters 6 and 12, the values of both cells A1 and B1 have to be changed and the calculation carried out accordingly
If such a program is used for carrying out complex calculations with a large number of related parameters, it is likely that a user, at some stage, wants to “test” what effect some parameter changes have on the whole calculation. Such programs like tax calculation programs offer a “test” or “what if” mode for this purpose. The user activates the “what if” mode, changes one or a plurality of input parameters, carries out the calculation based on these amended parameters and checks the result of the calculation.
If the user closes or exits the “what if' mode, the changed parameters are reset to their initial values. If the user has activated the “what if' mode, it could happen that the user wants to test some different parameter values but ultimately wishes to return to the current parameter configuration. The user then has only two options. Either the user can end the “what if” mode and start over from scratch, or the user can back up parameter by parameter until the user is back at the forking point. The larger the number of test paths, the more complicated the handling of different parameter sets becomes. It would therefore be desirable to provide a more user-friendly handling of different test configurations of documents having a large number of parameters dependent on other parameters.
Also, known in the prior art are version control systems. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,806,078. However, such systems are not useful for testing the effects of various parameter sets in a computer-based method. In each case, the user would have to save a version at a point where a change in parameters was anticipated, complete the analysis, and then retrieve the saved version and start over with the different parameters. This avoids the backing-up parameter by parameter. However, in a short period, the number of revisions and tracking the various versions within the version control system becomes an unwieldy task that detracts from developing an understanding of the results from the testing. Also, if the user fails to save a version at the appropriate point, the user is simply back to the original task of backing up parameter by parameter. Moreover, such an approach works only when sufficient storage is available for all the various versions that must be saved. Finally, if a user saves a number of versions that are not wanted, the user must manually delete the unwanted versions.